Originally published on March 4th, 2022 My recent post about trucks got me thinking about truck movies. For no other reason than the mental exercise of seeing how many I could think of, I present you this curated list, in no particular order. Maximum Overdrive A Stephen King classic starring Emilio Estivez. Trucks (and machines…
Author: Michael Kurt
EMERGENCY!
The question has been asked more than once regarding the legalities of driving a former emergency vehicle. In short, it’s perfectly legal as long as you don’t try to run through traffic with lights and sirens going with some restrictions on the quantity and types of flashing lights that can be installed on the truck….
Water, Water Everywhere. Something, Something, Something.
Water storage was another part of this project I had to plan for. I had set the arbitrary goal of being self sufficient for 30 days, just to give myself a design target. To come up with my water storage needs I spent several days measuring my average water consumption and, er, liquid production. I’m…
Just Chillin’
Selecting a refrigerator, or some means to preserve food in a mobile application, involves a lot of considerations. Options include everything from a simple cooler full of ice to 12V coolers, to upright units with combined or separate fridge and freezer sections that can run off DC or AC power. You have to consider how…
Progress
While it may seem I’m making little progress (at least as far as updating my blog), I’ve been making decent headway on a variety of projects. It just takes a lot of time to plan things out, order supplies, take pictures and then write a post. Overall Scope & Workspace As we’re now nearly at…
Insulation
I have spent much of my time in recent weeks devising and implementing a plan for insulating the truck. This included both thermal and noise insulation. The cab in particular, needed quite a bit of both as it was little more than steel bodywork and some flimsy interior ceiling and wall panels along with a…
Diesel vs Gasoline
Lets start with a little background on internal combustion and the biggest difference between gasoline and diesel engines. In simple terms, gas engines inject fuel and air into the cylinder and a spark plug is used to ignite the mixture, driving the piston down, which rotates the crankshaft, which ultimately turns the wheels. Diesel engines…
Build Quality
I’ve yet to find anything to suggest corners were cut or something done cheaply in the manufacture of my ambulance. In fact, the exact opposite seems to be true. The module is a masterwork of aluminum fabrication and the thousands of feet of wiring are absolutely first rate. Every single wire is numbered at both…
Electric Avenue
One of the (many) advantages when converting an ambulance into an RV is they often come with an inverter, shore power hookup and are pre-wired for 12V DC and 110V AC loads. They may also have an existing house battery system in addition to the truck’s service batteries. The task then becomes how to best…
1.21 Jigawatts!
What the hell is a jigawatt? ~ Marty McFly The Power Audit The first step in designing an electrical system is to figure out how much power you are going to need. This is done by conducting a power audit, wherein you examine, in excruciating detail, every electrical device you intend to run on a…